Scholarship Moratorium

My BDE announced a Scholarship Moratorium until further notice. This does not directly affect High School Scholarships. It does prevent any On-Campus Scholarships from being given out and prevents replacements receiving scholarships for HS designees that are found to be ineligible.

The reason given was a $40 million shortfall.

Rumour has it that some money will be made available next fiscal year if needed to bridge any anticipated recruiting shortfalls. $ available will be significantly lower than the last few years. Emphasis will be on stretching the money by targeting public sector students.

Curious, does this change anything for incoming freshman planning to contract SMP in Spring 2012, especially if they have already joined guard/reserves?

Freshmen cannot contract in the spring. The cadet needs to be a sophomore to contract, and since there are no scholarship dollars associated with SMP there should be no effect. There may be an effect if the SMP cadet is also looking for a GRFD scholarship.

clarksonarmy said:

Freshmen cannot contract in the spring. The cadet needs to be a sophomore to contract, and since there are no scholarship dollars associated with SMP there should be no effect. There may be an effect if the SMP cadet is also looking for a GRFD scholarship.

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Thanks, for the reply, follow up question - is a student/cadet considered a sophomore by calendar year(2 semester/3 qtrs.completed beginning 3 semester/4th qtr.) or by college hours earned: ie, AP credits earned giving a freshman sophomore hours standing?

Marist College ROTC said:

My BDE announced a Scholarship Moratorium until further notice. This does not directly affect High School Scholarships. It does prevent any On-Campus Scholarships from being given out and prevents replacements receiving scholarships for HS designees that are found to be ineligible.

The reason given was a $40 million shortfall.

Rumour has it that some money will be made available next fiscal year if needed to bridge any anticipated recruiting shortfalls. $ available will be significantly lower than the last few years. Emphasis will be on stretching the money by targeting public sector students.

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Can we assume that this only affects "new" scholarships and the existing campus scholarships are unaffected? And by "new" do they mean that any ones awarded at the end of the school year for next year are now cancelled? I know my daughter's unit had a couple to give out for this fall and was wondering if those would be affected.

No matter how many credits a student has transferred in, we do not consider that student to be a sophomore until the have completed 2 semesters of ROTC.

Ohio2015Parent said:

Thanks, for the reply, follow up question - is a student/cadet considered a sophomore by calendar year(2 semester/3 qtrs.completed beginning 3 semester/4th qtr.) or by college hours earned: ie, AP credits earned giving a freshman sophomore hours standing?

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Marist College ROTC said:

No matter how many credits a student has transferred in, we do not consider that student to be a sophomore until the have completed 2 semesters of ROTC.

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Thanks for clarifying. DS's ROO is out of town and he was curious since AP scores just arrived earlier this week.

I anticipate that this will affect "promised" scholarships. If the paperwork has not been signed yet, I would not count on getting a scholarship before October, if at all.

goaliedad said:

Can we assume that this only affects "new" scholarships and the existing campus scholarships are unaffected? And by "new" do they mean that any ones awarded at the end of the school year for next year are now cancelled? I know my daughter's unit had a couple to give out for this fall and was wondering if those would be affected.

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Just to clarify, this disappointing news only affects "in school" scholarships, not 3 year AD scholarships awarded by the previous boards, correct? (I realize you said that it should not have an impact on HS recipients, but wanted to make sure you did not mean just 4 year HS awardees...)

I would imagine that both 4 year and 3 year AD scholarships given by Cadet Command during the national scholarship process would be safe, at least I would hope so.

This is sure dissapointing to those kids that thought they had a good chance at a campus based scholarship. It looks like the DoD budget woes have trickled down to AROTC.

For those who are starting the scholarship application process for next year this will no doubt have an impact. Applicants may want to look harder at in state schools where the tuition is lower, if you are only applying to out of state and private schools you can probably expect many more 3 year scholarships for those schools.

Make sure you dot all your I's and cross all your T's on your application. Build a good relationship with the ROO's and PMS's at the schools you are most interested in. Make sure you do your interview at your #1 school choice, a good interview and recommendation from the PMS can help. Study hard for your SAT's and ACT's and get the best score you can. Make sure you list every activity you have done, don't leave anything out.

It looks like this year is going to be a bumpy ride.

I do not believe the AD Scholarships will be affected.

leapyear said:

Just to clarify, this disappointing news only affects "in school" scholarships, not 3 year AD scholarships awarded by the previous boards, correct? (I realize you said that it should not have an impact on HS recipients, but wanted to make sure you did not mean just 4 year HS awardees...)

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Thank you Marist for the update. I imagine this is just the first part of a recalibration of the whole AROTC scholarship program and perhaps reaching into the whole question of "which units are providing us with the best value for the quality officers that we need?"

If the much-discussed coming scaleback in the ground forces actually happens, I imagine that the Army may want to cut back or eliminate the ROTC programs that are not providing the best bang for the buck.

I don't know how much this will affect your unit as different units have different mixtures of national scholarships vs. SMPs vs. campus-based scholarships vs. non-scholarship cadets. I wish you the best with keeping your unit strong.

disappointing news indeed, but I suppose not surprising given the now 3.5 year Great Recession, and the lessening of personnel requirements in Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran at present.

I can see a lessening budget for AROTC, which will cause:

1) increasing # of Scholarships given for Technical majors, and less for non-technical

2) Further decreasing of $$ for private school scholarships. This year went from 4 to 3 for most awardees. I can see where CC might need to go a "Half Scholarship, all 4 years", or 2/3 scholarship years 2-4, or just full scholarships for Advanced Course (years 3 and 4), with nothing for years 1 and 2. Basically, the whole marketing campaign built around "$180,000 scholarship" will be a thing of the past. I imagine the Award letter will look like this:

* 4 year Scholarship to University of Florida
* 2 year AD scholarship to University of Miami

Please indicate which you will accept....etc.

3) fewer scholarships in total

4) Fewer participating campuses. Affiliate Units at schools that don't offer much support to the AROTC, and that have less than a minimum number of active members (let's just say 10), will be removed from the Affiliate program.

5) Fewer Host schools. Host schools with declining AROTC class enrollments will likewise be moved to Affiliate status pending a turn-around in the Unit's momentum, or removed altogether, along with their Affiliate schools, along with all the budget for PMS and staff. The Brigade Commander will reassign the money to Units and Battalions that are high performers. Essentially a lesser number of PMSs and staff might be able to serve a similar number of cadets more efficiently when not so geographically spread out.

dunninla said:

..the lessening of personnel requirements in Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran at present.

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Approximately, what are the personnel requirements in Iran?

oops, I meant "possible future" wrt Iran.

The entire AROTC program costs as much as 20 Apache Helicopters
of which the Army has about 1,000. I really don't see wholesale changes
in the AROTC program, a little trimming here and there, nothing dramatic.

Army Annual Budget 140 Billion
AROTC budget 400 Million
--250 million - scholarships, stipend, book allowance etc
--100 million - personnel
--50 million - summer training, uniforms, operations etc.

In the past 20 yrs, the Army has closed 125+ ROTC Battalions, which did not produce enough cadets, and will likely continue to cut under-preforming programs.

*Alabama now has 10 AROTC Battalions, New Jersey has only 3 AROTC Battalions

^ I imagine that the first response to congressional pressure to spend less would be for the top brass to declare: Step 1: OK, everything, EVERYTHING gets cut x%... let's say 4%. Step 2: loop back in to take an additional 2 % from some less critical (this year) programs, and restore the money back to more critical programs, resulting in 0% cutback to some programs.

It's not what AROTC costs, it is the proportional share of all defense expenditures. Otherwise, why were the expenditures what they are now? Were they incorrectly apportioned last year and the year before? I think we have to assume the current apportionments are correct, and that everything must scale back an equal % to hit budget.

In the particular case of the AROTC, the need for newly minted 2nd LTs in FY 2016 appears at this time to be less than the current need. This is owing to the two headed monster: drawdown in force, and the reluctance of O4, 03 to voluntarily leave their commission in the expected proportion to enter civilian life (worforce or home-making) in the midst of this Recession. In this particular case, I can easily see how AROTC budget would decrease more than the Army average decrease. It can't be easy to project 4.5 years into the future, but they've got to make their best estimate of JO headcount for FY 2016 right now.

But what do I know

I don't know anything either, but it's fun to speculate.
I'm guessing cut backs in some of the huge construction
projects and the like. Less in people and weapons.

Promotion boards will continue to get more restrictive and
the old 'up or out' may come back in full force.

Moratorium Confirmation

My son will be a freshman this fall, and is hoping to pick up a campus-based scholarship. He is being told by the cadre at his school that they are unaware of a moratorium and that he is at the top of the list for a scholarship. Are they blowing smoke, uninformed, or hopefully?!?!? correct?

He is committed to ROTC regardless, but as the paying parent, I am very curious. It may be irrelevant, but he didn't get passed over by previous scholarship boards (3.9 GPA / 34 ACT/ Top-10 nationally-ranked athlete), he just didn't make his final decision re: ROTC until after the period had passed to apply for a scholarship. Yes, he knows he screwed up.

So, is my Google-Fu weak, or is there somewhere I can look for confirmation of this moratorium?

IMHO; Cadre is a pretty loose term, a call as a interested and concerned parent, to the AROTC Battalion PMS for a answer is in order - then trust your PMS.